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The PRCA December 2020 census tells us that, in the United Kingdom, the public relations (PR) industry continues to be predominantly female, with 68% of respondents ticking that box. It also highlights a ‘gender pay gap’ of 21%, an increase of 7% from March 2020 and states that ‘this can be explained by the fact that the respondents … are largely in senior roles which tend to be more male dominated’ (PRCA, 2020), thus demonstrating a leadership gap as well as a pay one. Both of the leading PR professional membership bodies in the United Kingdom – the PRCA and CIPR – acknowledge the gender pay and leadership gaps, made starker in an industry dominated by women, and have committed to tackle the disparity.

In this chapter, I build on Liz Yeomans' (2020) work, in which she suggests ‘new avenues for researching neoliberalism and postfeminism in PR’ (p. 44) to examine the ‘apparently progressive moves’ (Yeomans', 2020) by women's networking organisations. I analyse website texts from two women-only PR networking organisations – Women in PR and Global Women in PR – to explore the ways in which they construct their function, purpose and role, and to examine their position vis-à-vis the contemporary postfeminist media culture (Gill, 2007). The research takes a feminist, discourse analytic approach and sheds light on the reality of women in PR as constructed by organisations whose stated goal is to: ‘improve equality and diversity across the industry by increasing the number and diversity of women in leadership roles’ (Women in PR, 2022).

This chapter offers a comprehensive review the literature on authentic leadership (AL). The authors employ a bibliometric approach to identify, classify, visualise and synthesise relevant scholarly publications and the work of a core group of interdisciplinary scholars who are key contributors to the research on AL. They review 264 journal articles, adopting a clustering technique to assess the central themes of AL scholarship. They identify five distinct thematic clusters: authenticity in the context of leadership; structure of AL; social perspectives on AL; dynamism of AL; and value perceptions of AL. Velt and Sinkovics assert that these clusters will help scholars of AL to understand the dominant streams in the literature and provide a foundation for future research.

This study aims to identify the inputs from zakat administrators and experts needed for more efficient and effective zakat revenue generation.

Face-to-face interviews with zakat executives, administrators and experts are conducted to collect data.

The findings show three components of input required in the zakat transformation: environment, resources and history. The environmental component comprises five sub-components: companies, banks, zakat recipients, individual zakat payers and the legislative, while the resource sub-components comprise tangible and intangible resources. For history, two components, namely, achievements and challenges, need to be taken into account by the zakat administration.

This study’s main implication is that the components proposed in this study can serve as the basis for developing new strategies for improving zakat collection and distribution management to achieve a more efficient and effective level.

This study will be helpful for policymakers, especially zakat authorities, on how to enhance their administration.

The model developed in this study will help the zakat administration to reform and enhance zakat compliance and zakat revenue generation.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of board characteristics on CEO turnover performance relationship (TPR) in Indian listed firms.

A subset of the Standard and Poor’s Bombay Stock Exchange 500 (S&P BSE 500) Index companies was analyzed over the period 2015–2019 using the logistic (fixed-effects) regression model.

It was found that a weak relationship exists between CEO turnover and firm performance. With respect to board characteristics, board size was found to have a significant role in strengthening the TPR. However, other characteristics, such as board independence, multiple directors, board meetings and board gender diversity, played no role in influencing the TPR.

First, the study period is limited to five years, during which several sample firms did not face any CEO turnover event leading to small sample size. Second, this study considers only the board’s gender diversity, whereas other types of diversity are omitted. Third, this study does not differentiate between insider and professional CEOs.

The findings suggest that regulators should focus on the effective enforcement of laws to strengthen the TPR and improve the monitoring role of boards, particularly in emerging economies like India, which face type II agency problems in addition to traditional principal–agent conflict. The results also offer implications for corporations, investors and academic researchers, highlighting areas that need considerable attention pertaining to corporate governance.

This study discerns the impact of several board-related characteristics on the TPR, particularly after the introduction of the new Companies Act 2013 in the emerging economy of India, where it has not been explored extensively.

Killing Eve (BBC 2018–2022) has been hailed as a feminist television show. Its cinematic production values call upon a history of espionage on screen, encompassing international intrigue and glamorised hyperviolent action sequences. Is this violent aesthetic a cathartic reference to newly visible feminist discourse or are we just being sold a new version of old fantasies?

In this chapter Killing Eve is examined in relation to a history of violent women spies on screen, from Emma Peel (The Avengers 1961–1969) to Sydney Bristow (Alias 2001–2006). While Villanelle (Jody Comer) appears to present an amoral account of postfeminist ‘empowerment’, Eve (Sandra Oh) carries echoes of second-wave feminist concerns with community, morality and ethics. With each season the differences between Villanelle and Eve unravel, raising questions about what constitutes ‘quality’ television and how that might intersect with old-fashioned ideas about women's liberation. While the show depicts each character as ‘liberated’ in some respects, they are both entangled in corporate nets which repeatedly put them in danger and pull them back into violence as a form of labour.

Recent research has captured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in widening gender inequalities, by highlighting that academic women have been disproportionately affected. During the COVID-19 pandemic, women assumed most of the care labour at home, whilst working at normal patterns, leaving them unable to perform as normal. This is very concerning because of the short and long-term detrimental consequences this will have on women’s well-being and their academic careers. This article aims to stimulate a change in the current understandings of academic work by pointing towards alternative – and more inclusive – ways of working in academia.

The two authors engage with autoethnography and draw on their own personal experience of becoming breastfeeding academic mothers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

To understand the positioning of contemporary academic mothers, this study draws on insights from both cultural studies and organisation studies on the emergence of discursive formations about gender, that is “postfeminist sensibility”. Guided by autoethnographic accounts of academic motherhood, this study reveals that today academia creates an individualised, neutral (disembodied), output-focused and control-oriented understanding of academic work.

This paper adds to the conversation of academic motherhood and the impact of the pandemic on working mothers. The study theoretically contributes with the lens of “motherhood” in grasping what academic work can become. It shows the power of motherhood in opening up an alternative way of conceptualising academic work, centred on embodied care and appreciative of the non-linearity and messiness of life.

This study aims to test the relationship between information technology investment (IT_INVEST) and working capital management (WCM) efficiency.

This study utilized a survey research design to collect data from micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) owners in India.

Empirical results show that perceived IT_INVEST plays a role in improving WCM efficiency by decreasing the inventory holding period and reducing the cash conversion cycle (CCC) in India. A three-stage least square model (3SLS) shows that IT_INVEST decreases CCC directly and indirectly through the inventory holding period, accounts receivable period and accounts payable period. The empirical analysis also shows that IT_INVEST decreases the inventory holding period and CCC by 16.80% and 26.40%, respectively, for the examined firms.

If MSMEs' owners perceive a higher level of IT_INVEST, then the owners perceive a higher WCM efficiency and vice versa.

This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between IT_INVEST and WCM efficiency. This study may encourage further studies of IT investment and WCM efficiency using data from other industries and countries. MSME owners may find empirical results beneficial to improve WCM efficiency. Moreover, financial management consultants may find results helpful to provide consulting services.

Spirituality is a concept that explains the spiritual dimension of human beings. Meaning of life, being together, and the bigger one's existence are the components of spirituality. In that manner, workplace spirituality is an area that endeavors to find the meaning of the work together with the community. Research reveals that workplace spirituality has several dimensions, and inner life, sense of community, and meaning at work are validly used. Though developing in the research area, misunderstandings and misuses of the phenomenon causes several dark sides. In this context, this chapter aims to reveal these in five aspects to contribute to enhancing the literature. The ambiguity in defining spirituality and religion is the first dark point in understanding workplace spirituality. Accepting spiritual executions at work as a tool for profitability is the second. The scarcity of awareness of executive leaders about workplace spirituality is the other. Considering the studies on workplace spirituality as a fad and the expected difficulties in developments about the area is the fourth. Finally, workplace spirituality-based misbehaviors at work are the last dark side, addressed in this study. In addition to the explanations in its content, the authors present a bibliometric analysis conducted by R. The chapter concludes with general evaluations and suggestions for future studies.

Hoping to increase the productivity of their employees, firms provide and expect their employees to use approved mobile apps. However, despite an intuitive appeal, the relationship between information technology usage and productivity is still seen as paradoxical. This study examines the relationship between employees' experience and engagement with business mobile apps provided by employers and its effects on employee work productivity.

Data from respondents who use employer-provided business apps were used to test the hypotheses. Measurement-corrected latent scores extracted from the PLS measurement evaluation were used in regression-centric assessment using PROCESS.

Results indicate that employee-users’ experience-based attributions of the business app, i.e. customization, performance quality and compatibility, have positive effects on productivity mediated by participation intensity. Further, work type (retail vs non-retail) and the depth of the employee user’s experience moderate experience-based attributions' indirect effects on productivity.

Unlike previous studies delving into this topic, this study focuses solely on the mediation and moderation effects for hypothesis testing. Specifically, this study investigates effects conditional on work type (retail vs non-retail), which the authors believe has significant implications for retailing. These findings have interesting implications for both future research and managers.

A growing body of research finds that gig economy platforms use gamification to enhance managerial control. Focusing on technologically mediated forms of gamification, this literature reveals how platforms mobilize gig workers’ work effort by making the labour process resemble a game. This chapter contends that this tech-centric scholarship fails to fully capture the historical continuities between contemporary and much older occurrences of game-playing at work. Informed by interviews and participatory observations at two food delivery platforms in Amsterdam, I document how these platforms’ piece wage system gives rise to a workplace dynamic in which severely underpaid delivery couriers continuously employ game strategies to maximize their gig income. Reminiscent of observations from the early shop floor ethnographies of the manufacturing industry, I show that the game of gig income maximization operates as an indirect modality of control by (re)aligning the interests of couriers with the interests of capital and by individualizing and depoliticizing couriers’ overall low wage level. I argue that the new, algorithmic technologies expand and intensify the much older forms of gamified control by infusing the organizational activities of shift and task allocation with the logic of the piece wage game and by increasing the possibilities for interaction, direct feedback and immersion. My study contributes to the literature on gamification in the gig economy by interweaving it with the classic observations derived from the manufacturing industry and by developing a conceptualization of gamification in which both capital and labour exercise agency.